It doesn’t want to listen because it’s not focused on you. There are too many exciting things outside – like the wind pushing a leaf across the grass, the neighbor’s dog, a car passing on the street or kids out playing. In a flash, the puppy takes off after the leaf or the neighbor’s dog or heads toward the street. Because the puppy hasn’t been trained to focus, anything goes, and he could very well end up with some negative consequences.
Just like something harmful can happen with an untrained puppy, a mind that doesn’t practice mindfulness can also experience negative consequences. When you allow your mind to go off on any thought process, you can bet those thoughts won’t always bring you a positive return.
Your mind will start to think about situations that caused you anger in life. You’ll start thinking about wanting to get even. You’ll feel sorry for yourself that your life isn’t like someone else’s who seems to have everything.
Before you know it, you’re on a cycle of negativity because your mind was allowed to go there, to dwell on thoughts that produce negative feelings. Whatever the mind dwells on can either help you have good feelings about your life or it can introduce bad ones. When your mind isn’t practicing mindfulness, it can wander off into thinking about things that cause you to feel stressed out. It can cause you to feel anxiety. You might experience a rise in anger and become bitter.
Left alone, the mind that’s not focused with mindfulness can lead you to sessions of depression. Practicing mindfulness is something that can help you focus on being present and can alter how the past affects you. Mindfulness keeps you centered on today, not yesterday and not tomorrow. There are various techniques using mindfulness that can help improve mental health. Among these are mindfulness stress reduction and mindfulness cognitive therapy.
Common Techniques for Mindful Practices
There are several techniques that you can use to harness mindfulness. The first one is meditation. Most people are familiar with the basics of meditation. To practice mindful meditation, you need a comfortable place to sit down.
Be aware of how you’re breathing and center your focus on the moment that you’re in. Concentrate on your breath, paying attention to your inhaling and exhaling.
Mindful meditation is different because when thoughts pull you away from the moment, you concentrate on your breathing, stop and refocus. During this time, you should have a non-judgmental attitude toward whatever it is that runs through your mind.
It might be hard to keep your mind focused if you’ve had a habit in the past of allowing your mind to wander when you’re trying to concentrate. Besides meditation, you can choose to practice the mindfulness technique of deep breathing.
Taking breaths isn’t something that a lot of people are aware of. We do it without thinking about it. But when you practice deep breathing involving mindful techniques, this can relieve stress, boost your energy levels and help you achieve calmness.
One technique is achieved by breathing through the nose in short breaths for a few seconds. This practice can help to give you a mindful awareness that returns your focus to the present.
Another technique is to count the deep breaths that you take for a few seconds. You would focus on breathing in through the nose and exhaling slowly through the mouth.
The object technique is used in mindfulness to help raise the level of focus that you have. To do this practice, you pick out any item near you and focus on that item.
Your awareness should only be about that item such as a vase or a chair or whatever other object you choose. Keep the focus until that item is all that your mind centers on.
When your thoughts start to drift away, you consciously pull them back to the item that you’re looking at. Walking is another technique used in mindful practices. Make sure that you’re in an area where you can walk unrestricted. Place your focus on what’s around you. Take in the five senses that are present in your surroundings – such as what you can hear or smell or see.
Breathe normally and be aware of how you pick up your foot and put it down as you take a step. Focus your thoughts on how your feet feel as they connect with the walking surface. Pay attention to how your body is working as you walk. Keep your focus on the movements that you make as you walk, including swinging your arms, the speed you walk, and more.
Snapping Yourself Out of a Past or Future Focus
What’s already happened is long gone. No one can change events or emotions that have already passed. It’s human nature to look at the past and feel nostalgic, or even fearful or angry – but the trouble comes in when we focus on the past and let it guide our present actions, rather than living in the present moment.
When that happens, you miss the chance to create your best life and you’re settling either for the pain or the glory of what used to be. A life of potential fullness can easily be lost by looking at life in the past.
In the same way that focusing on the past can limit your ability to have your best life, so can focusing on the future. The future isn’t here yet. You don’t want to waste the quality of the present on what might happen in the future.
Usually, what you focus on for the future, when it arrives, is different from what you thought it would be. To have the best life possible, you need to aim for keeping your focus solely on the present. It’s true that everyone can have times where the past or the future seems to be all they can focus on. But you can change that. You change it by living in the now.
When you’re working on something, don’t work on several things at once. When you’re eating, don’t do anything else besides eat. When you’re spending time with someone, don’t split your thoughts by trying to pay attention to the other person while at the same time opening mail or answering an email. Don’t always be thinking about what’s coming next. Be in the present fully aware of your actions. Slow down. Don’t try to zip through life at full speed to get stuff over with.
Stop overcrowding your day by multitasking your way through everything. You’re not really getting more accomplished because you’re not able to give one single thing your complete attention. Stop packing so much into your life – because too many things will cause you to suffer from a mental frenzy. This happens when you take on so much that you feel as if you don’t have time to think.
Take a break on purpose. It’s rare that people simply be instead of doing. For a set amount of time every day, stop. You might have heard the phrase ‘take the time to stop and smell the roses’ and this is the same principle. Take the time to stop and be present. Don’t do anything during your time of stopping but drink in your surroundings. Notice the day. The scents on the air. The beauty around you.
When you take the time to practice mindfulness, it allows you to not only create the best life you could ever dream of, but you get to savor it, too. When you begin practicing this process, you’ll notice how many others are not living in the present, and you’ll be grateful that you’re no longer chained to the old way of living.
How Can You be Mindful
You can be mindful on daily basis by paying attention to current tasks, but mindfulness is usually associated with doing so with a particular attitude of curiosity, openness and acceptance. That way you can be open to your actual experience, free of presumptions and without being distracted by your reactions to it.
Mindfulness is at its peak when you’re focusing your mind entirely on it, which is known as meditation or 'falling awake' as a contrast to falling asleep.
The movement of breath into and out of the body is a very popular initial focus of attention in mindful meditation as it is always present and involves just enough bodily movement to keep one interested.
Some people prefer a repeated silent phrase – called a mantra – or a set of rhythmic, simple movements, or enjoy being guided through